Various wireless access technologies have been proposed or implemented to enable mobile stations to perform communications with other mobile stations or with wired terminals coupled to wired networks. More recently, a wireless broadband access technology that has been defined is the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax) technology, which is based on the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.16 Standard (as amended by the IEEE 802.16e or IEEE 02.16e-2005). WiMax is able to provide broadband wireless connectivity for mobile stations at relatively high data rates.
Due to the fact that WiMax is a relatively new wireless broadband access technology, some smaller service providers may not be able to afford the deployment cost associated with deploying the infrastructure for WiMax. However, such service providers may still desire to provide WiMax access service to their subscriber base via service agreements with WiMax infrastructure owners (who may be different from the service providers).
An issue associated with such an arrangement between WiMax infrastructure owners and a service provider is that the non-WiMax infrastructure used by the service provider may be incompatible with the WiMax infrastructure.